Page 30 of Your Fault

“Not everything in life is money.”

Lion laughed. “That’s exactly what a rich kid would say.”

Okay, that was going too far, and on any other occasion, I would have told him to go fuck himself, but I knew there was something sincere and deep behind those words, something that really was getting at him.

I didn’t respond, and he didn’t say anything else. We just turned up the music, and we didn’t even stop for lunch.

When we arrived, our mood improved: it was impossible not to be affected by the atmosphere of Las Vegas, the people, the attractions, the lights, not to mention the hotel… Caesar’s was something else. It was practically a city of its own, with boutiquesfeaturing all the finest brands… The girls would have gone crazy there. Maybe it wasn’t Italy, but the place was top-notch; there was no denying it. Our room was on the west side of the hotel, which was huge, and we had to walk forever to reach it.

“What do you want to do?” Lion asked, going out on the balcony to light up a cigarette.

“Have a couple of drinks,” I said. I didn’t want to tell him this, but every time I went to see Madison, I got a little depressed. I hated knowing my mother was so close; I just couldn’t take it.

We went back downstairs to one of the many bars in the hotel, one that was right alongside the casino. Lion was a card shark, and I imagined he’d play a game or two before we went back to our room. It was late, and I was tired after the drive, but I enjoyed myself, drinking a few glasses of aged rum to calm my anxiety and lift my spirits.

“You in the mood for some gambling?” Lion asked thirty minutes later, once we had a decent buzz going on.

“You go. I’d rather stay here,” I said, taking out my phone to check my messages in case Noah had written.

I’d sent her a text not long before, half joking, half-serious, asking if she needed me to send her something so she’d remember me. We hadn’t talked for two days, and I was pretty sure she must have just arrived in London.

She had responded:

Having something to remember you by would mean it was possible to forget you.

Sarcastically, I replied:

What is that, Shakespeare?

A second later, I could see she was texting me back, and I felt a warmth inside myself I only ever felt when I thought about her.

I’ve just been here two hours and I guess all the literature written here is soaking into me. Anyway, if you don’t like romantic messages, don’t send them, idiot.

Along with that came a long row of frowny-face emojis. I grinned.

I’m going to give you something more than just romantic messages when you come back from that dumb trip. We don’t need a bunch of old dead writers. You and I are poetry, my love.

I had no idea how I was going to make it through those next two and a half weeks.

The next morning, I got up early and jumped in the shower, trying to put on a good face before I saw my sister. I was planning on picking her up, then meeting Lion. After that, we’d decide what to do.

I drove out of the touristy area in that insane city and soon reached the ritzy development where my sister lived. I got out and put on my sunglasses, regretting how much I’d drunk the night before. In the best of cases, my mood those past few days had been pretty bad, and I didn’t feel like having to deal with any nonsense or unpleasant surprises. And so, when I saw the woman holding hands with my sister and walking toward me, I had to take a few deep breaths and remind myself that there was a six-year-old girl in front of me. Otherwise, I would have gotten in the car and peeled out without looking back.

The tall blond woman walking toward me was the last person in the world I wanted to see.

“Nick!” my sister shouted, jerking away from my mother and running toward me. Ignoring the jabbing pain in my temples provoked by that high-pitched shriek only Madison was capable of, I picked her up off the ground as soon as she reached me.

“Hey, Princess!” I greeted her, hugging her and ignoring my mother, who walked up to us.

“Hello, Nicholas,” she said timidly, standing stiffly the way she always did. She hadn’t changed much since the last time I’d seen her, some eight months ago, when she and her stupid husband had neglected my sister and she’d ended up in the hospital with diabetic ketoacidosis.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed, setting Maddie down close to me. She stood there between us, grabbed my hand, and reached up for her mother’s as well.

“Finally, the three of us are together!” Madison shouted joyfully. I don’t know how many times she’d asked me to come visit her at home, to play with her in her room, to come to her birthday party. All those requests conveyed a single intention: getting my mother and me together in the same room.

“I want to talk to you,” she said, tense but trying not to show it. She was impeccably dressed, her short blond hair pulled back with a ridiculous headband. She was just like the women who lived in my neighborhood, like all the women I hated for being so dumb, so frivolous. But her looks meant she’d always been treated like a queen bee by every man she ever met. They all idolized her, and they all wanted to have sex with her.

“I’m not interested in anything you have to say to me,” I replied, trying to keep my tone of voice from showing the effect she had on me—how little I could stand her presence.

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